Other Performing Arts Companies (U.S., NAICS 711190)

An investor's primer — for public-market and private investors alike.

1. Overview

The North American Industry Classification System (NAICS) code 711190, "Other Performing Arts Companies," covers businesses that produce live performing-arts spectacles that aren't plays, dance, or concerts — circuses, ice shows, magic and illusion shows, and traveling carnival-style productions.[1] The load-bearing word is produce: a 711190 firm creates and owns the show and puts the performers on stage. Companies that only book venues, promote events, or sell tickets sit in different codes, and so do theater, dance, and music.[1]

This is the commercial "spectacle" corner of the live-entertainment economy — the business of selling seats to a produced experience. It rides the same secular tailwind as concerts and live sports ("experiences over goods," and the post-pandemic surge in willingness to pay for live events sometimes called "funflation"),[20] but it is unusually concentrated and unusually private. A small number of large producers command most of the revenue.

• Public route: there is no pure-play public company in this code. Exposure is indirect, through larger listed live-entertainment, venue, ticketing, and intellectual-property firms whose classification straddles this code and its neighbors (Section 4).
• Private route: this is where the industry actually lives — family ownership, private-equity and creditor consortiums, nonprofit producers, and a long tail of small operators.

2. What it is and how it's structured

Scope. NAICS 711190 comprises companies or groups — except theater, dance, and musical acts — primarily engaged in producing live theatrical presentations. The Census Bureau's illustrative examples are carnival traveling shows, circuses, ice-skating companies, and magic shows.[1]

A typical operator will create or license a show concept and its intellectual property (IP), hire performers and technical crew, mount a touring or resident production, sell tickets directly or through a ticketing partner, and layer on sponsorship, merchandise, licensing, and media revenue.

What it explicitly excludes (and where those activities are counted instead):

• Theater companies and dinner theaters — plays, musicals, opera, comedy, mime, puppetry → NAICS 711110.[1]
• Dance companies → NAICS 711120.[1]
• Musical groups and independent musicians/vocalists → NAICS 711130.[1]
• Promoters who organize or manage events without producing their own show → NAICS 711310 (with their own facilities) and 711320 (without). Ticketing, venue, and promotion businesses such as Live Nation live here, not in 711190.[1]
• Agents and managers for artists and entertainers → NAICS 711410.[1]
• Independent (freelance) artists and performers other than musicians/vocalists — the solo magician, aerialist, or juggler operating for their own account → NAICS 711510, Independent Artists, Writers, and Performers.[1]

Because these boundaries are narrow, many well-known live-entertainment businesses span several NAICS industries at once — a single company can hold a producer code, a promoter code, and a venue code.[1]

Ownership mix. The commercial core is privately held: family firms, creditor/private-equity consortiums, and closely held touring operators. Alongside them sit nonprofit producers — organizations exempt under Internal Revenue Code section 501(c)(3), which must operate for a qualifying exempt purpose and cannot distribute earnings to private owners[31] — and a fragmented tail of tiny for-profit operators, many of whom are actually captured in the independent-artist code (711510) or as non-employer sole proprietorships rather than here. The federal statistics do not publish an ownership breakdown for the code.

3. How big it is

Per the U.S. federal statistical agencies, the employer core of this industry is small. The figures below mix two vintages — the 2022 Economic Census (receipts, firm count, concentration) and the 2023 County Business Patterns, or CBP (establishments, employment, payroll) — so treat them as a rough composite, not one perfectly synchronized annual dataset.

That works out to roughly $6.5 million of revenue per firm, about 15 employees per establishment, and average pay near $52,000 — a modest employer footprint for an industry whose flagship shows sell out arenas.[2][3] The U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA) treats a producer as "small" up to $34 million in receipts; that is a government-contracting classification, not an estimate of industry size, and by it the overwhelming majority of the 268 firms are small businesses.[4]

The undercount caveat — read this before trusting the totals. These federal figures materially understate the true world of "other performing arts," for several reasons:

1. Non-employer operators fall out. Many magicians, illusionists, and one- or two-person variety acts have no payroll, so CBP — which counts establishments with paid employees — never sees them.[5]
2. Freelancers are counted elsewhere. Individual producers and performers are routed to the Independent Artists code (711510), pulling thousands of practitioners out of this bucket.[1]
3. Classification drift on the giants. The largest producers straddle codes — Feld Entertainment, for example, earns much of its money from motorsports properties (Monster Jam, Supercross) that map to spectator-sports codes, even though its Disney On Ice and Ringling circus lines fit 711190 squarely.[6]

So read the ~$1.73 billion as the visible tip: the residual commercial core, not the economic weight of the companies that dominate it. The supplied federal data also contain no industry-wide figures for attendance, ticket volume, capacity utilization, average ticket price, operating expense, margin, or growth — none are estimated here.

4. The investable universe

Pure plays: essentially none. The producers that define this industry are private, and no listed company's primary business is "producing circuses, ice shows, and magic shows." Public investors reach the theme only through larger live-entertainment, venue, ticketing, or IP companies whose classification overlaps neighboring codes — treat these as proxies, not clean 711190 exposure. Tickers and figures are given here (and in Section 10) rather than in the prose above.

Adjacent public exposure

None isolates 711190 economics; each blends production with venues, promotion, sports, ticketing, or licensing.

Major private owners (where the industry actually is)

Private-company financials are limited. Investors should not assume a famous show brand is a separately investable company, or that its parent reports show-level profitability.

5. How the money works

Owners here make money the way any produced-show business does — selling seats to a spectacle whose creation cost is largely fixed and whose touring cost is largely variable. The basic unit is the performance, show run, or tour.

Revenue comes from ticket sales and premium seating; venue, hotel, cruise, or resort contracts; sponsorship and advertising; merchandise and concessions participation; licensing and royalties; corporate/education/private bookings; and media, streaming, or filmed-performance rights.

Costs are performer and crew payroll; venue rent and revenue splits; travel, freight, and local labor; sets, costumes, equipment, insurance, and maintenance; and marketing, ticketing, royalties, and financing.

The economics that matter:

• Attendance vs. capacity ("fill rate"). Each performance has a fixed seat count and a high break-even. Because production is a sunk cost, incremental revenue above break-even drops mostly to the bottom line — and losses compound fast below it. This is a high-operating-leverage business. A useful test:

Break-even paid attendance = show-level fixed costs ÷ (net ticket yield − variable cost per attendee)

• Ticket yield. Average realized price after fees, taxes, royalties, and venue splits, lifted by premium tiers and very-important-person (VIP) packages. "Funflation" pushed live-event yields up sharply, though cost-consciousness is now rising.[20]
• Number of performances. Revenue scales with show-dates; Cirque runs thousands a year across residencies and tours.[8]
• Per-capita ancillary spend. Merchandise and concessions per head — a meaningful, high-margin add-on.
• Intellectual property. Two directions: producers pay royalties to license marquee IP (Disney On Ice) — cheaper to launch, thinner margin, exposed to the licensor — or they own the IP (Ringling, the Rockettes, Cirque's brands) and keep more of the economics.[6][15]

Two models, different economics:

• Touring reaches many markets but carries heavy variable cost — transport, rigging, setup/teardown crews, per-market marketing, venue rent or box-office splits — plus weather and logistics risk.
• Residency (Cirque's six Las Vegas shows) trades away touring cost for high, steady utilization and destination-tourist demand, but ties the show to one market's health.[8]

Cash timing and seasonality. Ticket cash is often collected before the show, creating deferred-revenue and refund obligations if a date is canceled or rescheduled. Holiday shows (the Christmas Spectacular) concentrate a year's economics into weeks.[12] A production can sell many tickets and still destroy value if development, revenue-sharing, touring, or debt-service costs are too high.

6. What drives demand

• Discretionary spending and consumer confidence — these are optional, out-of-home purchases that track household budgets and sentiment.
• The experience-economy shift — consumers increasingly prioritize experiences over goods, a structural tailwind, though the willingness-to-pay surge is cooling.[20]
• Tourism and destination travel — Las Vegas residencies and holiday-destination shows convert visitor flows into ticket sales.[8]
• Family formation and recognizable IP — circuses, ice shows, and character-licensed spectacles are family purchases, sensitive to children-in-household and child-friendly brands.[6]
• Novelty and IP freshness — new shows and immersive formats refresh demand; stale catalogs fade. Declining novelty and controversy sank the original Ringling in 2017.[23]
• Discovery and bookings — social-media discovery, plus school, corporate, and community bookings.
• International reach — global casts depend on securing performer visas, and touring routes depend on venue availability.
• The affordability ceiling — rising ticket prices are a headwind; surveys of consumer sentiment show a large share now find live entertainment too costly for regular attendance.[20]
• Competition for the leisure dollar and hour — streaming, concerts, live sports, and theme parks bid for the same time and money (though streaming can also build the characters and stories that later fill seats).

7. Regulation

Several overlapping regimes shape the industry; the animal rules are specific to this code, the rest apply broadly to live entertainment.

• Animal welfare (industry-specific). Any producer displaying warm-blooded animals must hold a Class C exhibitor license from the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (USDA APHIS), meeting minimum-care standards and unannounced inspections.[21] Layered on top, state and local bans have reshaped the animal-circus segment: as of 2025 roughly a dozen states restrict or ban wild-animal acts in traveling shows (New Jersey and Hawaii first in 2018; California banned nearly all animals in 2019), plus 150-plus city and county ordinances.[22] That tide, alongside litigation, drove Ringling to drop elephants in 2016 and relaunch animal-free in 2023.[23]
• Labor and safety. Productions typically operate under union agreements — performers (Actors' Equity) and stagehands (the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees, IATSE). The federal Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) governs minimum wage, overtime, and worker classification, and the Department of Labor's independent-contractor guidance continues to evolve.[29] Rigging, fall protection, pyrotechnics, and crowd safety fall under Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) standards — high-risk aerial and acrobatic acts create real compliance and liability exposure.[28]
• Immigration. Touring foreign performers and essential crew generally require O- or P-category work visas (O-1 for extraordinary ability; P-1 for internationally recognized entertainers; P-2 for reciprocal-exchange artists; P-3 for culturally unique acts) — a genuine operational friction for globally sourced casts.[27]
• Ticketing consumer protection. The Federal Trade Commission's (FTC) Rule on Unfair or Deceptive Fees took effect May 12, 2025: live-event sellers, marketplaces, and resellers must disclose mandatory fees and the total price clearly and upfront.[24] The Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) requires accessible facilities and accessible seating sold on comparable terms.[25]
• Intellectual property. Scripts, choreography, music, designs, and show formats may require ownership, assignment, or public-performance licenses; the U.S. Copyright Office registers such performing-arts works.[26]
• Local requirements. Fire, building, public-assembly, occupancy, noise, alcohol, transportation, and event-permit rules are imposed locally, and child-performer labor rules apply where minors perform.

Regulation is both a cost and a competitive filter: larger operators spread compliance, insurance, legal, and ticketing costs over more performances.

8. Competitive dynamics and consolidation

This is one of the most concentrated industries in the arts. The federal concentration data are striking:

• Four firms account for 84.7% of receipts (CR4, the four-firm concentration ratio); the top eight for 89.7% (CR8); the top twenty for 94%; the top fifty for 97.1%.[2]
• The Herfindahl-Hirschman Index (HHI) — a standard concentration gauge, higher meaning more concentrated — is 2,416, well above the 1,800 line the Department of Justice (DOJ) and FTC treat as "highly concentrated."[2][30]

In plain terms: a handful of large producers own the arena-scale business while a long, fragmented tail of small and solo operators shares the rest. Barriers to entry are high at the top — marquee IP, brand recognition, the capital to mount a large show, arena relationships and touring logistics, and scarce Las Vegas residency slots — but low at the bottom, where a magician or small troupe needs little more than a van and an act.

Two caveats. Competition is based on more than ticket price — durable IP, a repeatable production, access to scarce talent, venue relationships, ticketing data, and enough capital to fund a show before demand is proven all matter. And the HHI/CR figures describe the Census-defined industry, not a properly drawn antitrust market; they don't identify the firms behind the numbers.

Consolidation runs through IP and format ownership: Cirque acquired Blue Man Group (2017) and rolls up marquee live IP,[10] while the broader sector produced the Endeavor–WWE–UFC combination that formed TKO.[11] Ownership skews to family control (Feld) and creditor/private-equity consortiums (Cirque's post-bankruptcy owners).[6][9] Deals that combine producers, promoters, venues, ticketing, and labor buyers can draw heightened antitrust attention, because the 2023 Merger Guidelines examine competition for creators, workers, and suppliers as well as for ticket buyers.[30] The live-competitive frontier is shifting toward immersive formats, a new capital-intensive entrant in produced spectacle.[13]

9. Risks

• Cyclicality and operating leverage. Discretionary demand plus a high fixed-cost base means profits swing hard with attendance; a soft economy bites fast.
• Perishable inventory. An empty seat or missed performance generally can't be sold later.
• Total-shutdown tail risk. COVID-19 (the coronavirus pandemic) closed live venues entirely and pushed Cirque du Soleil into bankruptcy in 2020 — the business can go to near-zero revenue overnight.[9]
• Flop risk. New productions carry large sunk creation costs a poorly selling show never recovers.
• IP dependence. Licensed-franchise shows rest on a licensor's goodwill; a license can expire, royalties can rise, or a brand can lose relevance.[6]
• Execution risk. Injuries, illness, weather, equipment failure, travel disruption, or venue problems can cancel dates.
• Labor, visa, and cost inflation. Skilled performers and crew are hard to replace; work stoppages or visa delays interrupt tours; labor, freight, insurance, and venue fees can rise faster than ticket prices.
• Reputational and regulatory pressure. Animal-welfare law, activism (e.g., People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, PETA), spreading bans, ticket-disclosure rules, and safety incidents carry litigation and brand cost.[22][24]
• Venue and platform dependence. A producer may rely on a few venues, ticketing systems, or distribution partners.
• Key-person and financial opacity. Family- and founder-driven private firms concentrate strategy in a few hands, and private operators (or public parents) may not disclose show-level economics.[6]
• Data limitations. Federal employer statistics miss non-employer, nonprofit, volunteer, and very small operators.[5]

10. How to invest, and the outlook

Public-market routes (all indirect). With no pure-play listing, public investors get exposure only through adjacent names — TKO (produced, scripted live entertainment via WWE),[11] SPHR (immersive produced spectacle),[13] MSGE (producer of the Rockettes' Christmas Spectacular),[12] and DIS (the IP licensor behind Disney On Ice),[15] with LYV and SEAT as reads on live-event demand and ticketing rather than production.[14][16] The task is to separate the live-production economics from each company's other businesses — examine attendance, pricing, occupancy, segment margins, free cash flow, leverage, capital spending, venue contracts, and IP rights.

Private routes (where the industry actually is). Real ownership is private — family equity (Feld)[6] and the creditor/private-equity consortium behind Cirque.[9] Private investors reach the space through direct equity in a producer or rights-owner, private-equity positions in touring platforms or venue groups, private credit secured by contracts or receivables, royalty/licensing financings, minority stakes in proven resident productions, or acquisitions of regional producers with repeat customers and defensible venue relationships. Diligence should center on show-level cash flow, rights ownership, break-even occupancy, cancellation terms, insurance, venue commitments, performer contracts, working capital, and debt priority — a famous brand is not a substitute for audited economics. Nonprofit producers (Big Apple Circus) are not investable in the equity sense.

Forward-looking judgment (not fact). The base case is a durable but uneven live-experience market. The experience-economy tailwind and healthy destination tourism support attendance, but the affordability ceiling and cooling "funflation" cap price-led upside — growth from here likely leans on volume, new IP, and format innovation rather than ever-higher tickets.[20] Watch three things: the immersive-spectacle build-out (Sphere's planned Abu Dhabi venue signals capital flowing into new produced formats);[13] the animal-free reinvention of the circus category (the relaunched Ringling is the test of whether the traditional format can grow without its historical controversy);[23] and the health of Las Vegas and destination tourism, on which the residency model depends.[8] The core tension is concentration versus fragility: the largest owners of durable IP, efficient production systems, and premium venue access should capture attractive economics, but a single failed production, venue disruption, regulatory change, or consumer pullback can damage results quickly. Public investors have liquidity but mostly indirect exposure; private investors have more direct access but face illiquidity, limited disclosure, and project-level underwriting risk.

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Sources

1. U.S. Census Bureau, 2022 NAICS Definition: 711190 Other Performing Arts Companies (definition and cross-references). https://www.census.gov/naics/?details=711190&year=2022
2. U.S. Census Bureau, 2022 Economic Census — Concentration of Largest Firms, NAICS 711190 (receipts, firm count, CR4/CR8/CR20/CR50, HHI). https://data.census.gov/table/ECNSIZE2022.EC2200SIZECONCEN?codeset=naics~711190
3. U.S. Census Bureau, County Business Patterns 2023 — NAICS 711190 (establishments, employment, annual and first-quarter payroll). https://data.census.gov/table/CBP2023.CB2300CBP
4. U.S. Small Business Administration, Table of Size Standards (NAICS 711190, $34 million receipts), 2023. https://www.sba.gov/document/support-table-size-standards
5. U.S. Census Bureau, County Business Patterns Methodology (employer-only coverage limitations). https://www.census.gov/programs-surveys/cbp/technical-documentation/methodology.html
6. Feld Entertainment, Company (ownership and brands), 2026. https://www.feldentertainment.com/company/
7. Wikipedia, Feld Entertainment (privately held; revenue history reported near $1 billion), 2025. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feld_Entertainment
8. Fortune, "After Cirque du Soleil's daring, high-wire comeback, its CEO is aiming for new heights," 2024. https://fortune.com/2024/04/24/cirque-du-soleil-bankruptcy-growth-covid/
9. CBC News, "Cirque du Soleil emerges from bankruptcy protection with sale to creditors," 2020. https://www.cbc.ca/news/business/cirque-du-soleil-sale-1.5815466
10. Cirque du Soleil Entertainment Group, Corporate Press Kit (owner group; Blue Man Group, VStar, The Works), 2024. https://www.cirquedusoleil.com/press
11. Sports Illustrated / FanNation, "WWE And UFC Parent Company TKO Group Announces Record Financials For 2024," 2025. https://www.si.com/fannation/wrestling/wwe/wwe-and-ufc-parent-company-tko-group-announces-record-financials-for-2024
12. Pollstar, "MSG's Radio City Christmas Spectacular Sees Highest Attendance in 25 Years At 1.2 Million," 2026. https://news.pollstar.com/2026/01/07/msgs-radio-city-christmas-spectacular-sees-highest-attendance-in-25-years-at-1-2-million/
13. Sphere Entertainment Co., Quarterly and Full-Year Results (immersive productions; Abu Dhabi venue), 2024. https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/sphere-entertainment-co-reports-fiscal-2024-fourth-quarter-and-full-year-results-302221730.html
14. Live Nation Entertainment, Annual Report (live-event demand metrics), 2026. https://www.livenationentertainment.com/
15. The Walt Disney Company, 2025 Annual Report (Feld named as producer of Disney On Ice). https://investors.thewaltdisneycompany.com/
16. Vivid Seats, Annual Report (secondary ticket marketplace), 2026. https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1856031/000119312526103023/seat-20251231.htm
17. Anschutz Entertainment Group, About (AEG Presents, AXS, venues), 2026. https://aegworldwide.com/about
18. The John Gore Organization, About (Broadway Across America, Broadway.com), 2026. https://www.johngore.com/about/
19. Nederlander Organization, About (theater and venue operations), 2026. https://www.nederlander.com/
20. Deloitte, "'Funflation' — and live event hype — goes up against more cost-conscious consumers" (Digital Media Trends), 2024. https://www.deloitte.com/us/en/insights/industry/technology/digital-media-trends-consumption-habits-survey/2024/funflation-goes-up-against-cost-conscious-consumers.html
21. USDA Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS), Licensing and Registration Under the Animal Welfare Act (Class C exhibitor licensing), 2024. https://www.aphis.usda.gov/animal-welfare
22. Animal Welfare Institute, "Two More States Ban Wild Animal Circus Acts," 2024; and Humane World for Animals, "Washington restricts wild animals in circuses and traveling shows," 2025. https://awionline.org/awi-quarterly/fall-2024/two-more-states-ban-wild-animal-circus-acts/
23. Chicago Sun-Times, "'Reborn' Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey circus returns with new tour — and no animals," 2023. https://chicago.suntimes.com/entertainment-and-culture/2023/3/21/23650302/ringling-bros-and-barnum-bailey-circus-returns-with-new-tour-no-animals
24. Federal Trade Commission, The Rule on Unfair or Deceptive Fees: Frequently Asked Questions (effective May 12, 2025), 2025. https://www.ftc.gov/business-guidance/resources/rule-unfair-or-deceptive-fees-frequently-asked-questions
25. U.S. Department of Justice, ADA Requirements: Ticket Sales, 2020. https://www.ada.gov/resources/ticket-sales/
26. U.S. Copyright Office, Performing Arts Works (registration of scripts, choreography, and stage works). https://www.copyright.gov/registration/performing-arts/
27. U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, O and P Nonimmigrant Classifications for Artists and Entertainers, 2022. https://www.uscis.gov/working-in-the-united-states/temporary-workers
28. Occupational Safety and Health Administration, Fall Protection for the Entertainment Industry. https://www.osha.gov/laws-regs/standardinterpretations/1997-01-28
29. U.S. Department of Labor, Misclassification of Employees as Independent Contractors Under the Fair Labor Standards Act, 2025. https://www.dol.gov/agencies/whd/flsa/misclassification
30. U.S. Department of Justice and Federal Trade Commission, 2023 Merger Guidelines, 2023. https://www.justice.gov/atr/merger-guidelines
31. Internal Revenue Service, Exemption Requirements — 501(c)(3) Organizations. https://www.irs.gov/charities-non-profits/charitable-organizations/exemption-requirements-501c3-organizations